


Losing Track

by blue_spruce



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: M/M, an ache in the heart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-17
Updated: 2019-02-17
Packaged: 2019-10-30 09:19:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17826044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blue_spruce/pseuds/blue_spruce
Summary: Sam crosses his arms over his chest and turns back towards the skyline. His hands are cold, the back of his neck sweaty. He blinks hard. “Yeah, you know what? Cap might come lecture me for being stupid,” he says, and fuck, his throat is aching, “but he sure as fuck isn’t gonna tell me I was wrong.”





	Losing Track

The city hums in all directions, bright under the dark sky. Steve’s deck chairs are surprisingly comfortable; Sam could hide out here all night. 

He shifts when the door to the balcony clicks open, drawing his knees up against his chest. “I wondered how long it would take you,” he says without turning his head. It comes out a little flat. 

Bucky lets out a long breath. “Steve was talking to me,” he says eventually, voice low, and Sam hears the catch of a lighter being struck.

“Mmm.” 

“I think he wants to talk to you.” 

Sam can’t help glancing over at Bucky this time. He regrets it at soon as he does: seeing Bucky standing there at the edge of the balcony, looking out across the city, just pulls the knot in his chest tighter. “I’m sure he does.” The words are sharp. 

Bucky takes another drag on his cigarette before he turns to face Sam head-on. It’s dark, but there’s enough light from the full moon and the city’s reflected glow that his arm and his white t-shirt both are visible. 

He’s standing here, alive and whole. Sam looks away.

“You shouldn’t have done that today,” Bucky says into the charged silence, and it’s like throwing a match on gasoline.

“Shut the hell up.” Sam feels the fight start to swirl down in his gut. His hands are closing into fists. 

Bucky’s expression is impenetrable. “Almost cost us the mission.”

“Saved your ass, though,” Sam snaps back, pushing himself to his feet. 

“I would’ve saved it myself.” 

“Oh,  _ how  _ could I forget.” If he was wearing his wings he’d jump right off the building. “Stupid of me, the Winter Soldier doesn’t need anyone.” The smallest tightening of the skin around Bucky’s mouth: that one hit its mark. Sam crosses his arms over his chest and turns back towards the skyline. His hands are cold, the back of his neck sweaty. He blinks hard. “Yeah, you know what? Cap might come lecture me for being stupid,” he says, and fuck, his throat is aching, “but he sure as fuck isn’t gonna tell me I was wrong.”

Bucky doesn’t say anything. Sam jumps when Bucky grabs him by the shoulder: he didn’t hear Bucky moving closer. Goddamn supersoldiers, get you every time. “You can’t,” Bucky says, his voice cold and clear as ice. “You can’t pick me over – over anyone else. Я запрещаю это.”

Sam boils over. “Man, fuck you,” he shouts, twisting violently out of Bucky’s grasp. He turns toward Bucky and shoves him. Bucky lets him, stumbles backwards, and the anger in Sam’s chest expands with his breath. He thinks, suddenly, of Riley; he’d been thinking about death all evening, curled up in the corner of Steve’s balcony, death and screaming and bile and panic. Riley falling through the sky; blood-curdling fear. Which is how Bucky clinging to the outside of a skyscraper, thirty floors up and a perfect target for sniper bullets made him feel. Sam had been sure, for a heart-stopping instant, that Bucky would fall. He had been sure enough that he can still  _ see  _ it, see this thing that never happened. 

Now, though, Sam shoves at Bucky again and thinks of the first time he and Riley did trust falls, back in training. That was a different kind of screaming fear: the terror of choosing to place your life in someone else’s hands. 

“Fuck you,” he says again, a bright flare of inarticulate rage. Everything balled up in an ugly knot.  _ You aren’t the only one who knows pain _ and  _ If I can do it, you can _ and  _ Trust me _ and  _ Don’t leave me here alone _ . 

Bucky drops his cigarette and grinds it into the tiled floor with the heel of his combat boot. He reaches out with his metal hand and places it flat against Sam’s chest, puts some space between them. “I mean it,” Bucky says, and Sam can hear in his voice that Bucky hasn’t changed his mind at all.

Sam closes his eyes. “Shut up,” he says, quiet this time. “I swear to God, Barnes.” 

When he reaches up to pull Bucky’s head down, it kind of feels like this time, he’s the one falling.

**Author's Note:**

> Losing Track (Denise Levertov)
> 
> Long after you have swung back  
> away from me  
> I think you are still with me:
> 
> you come in close to the shore  
> on the tide  
> and nudge me awake the way
> 
> a boat adrift nudges the pier:  
> am I a pier  
> half-in half-out of the water?
> 
> and in the pleasure of that communion  
> I lose track,  
> the moon I watch goes down, the
> 
> tide swings you away before  
> I know I'm  
> alone again long since,
> 
> mud sucking at gray and black  
> timbers of me,  
> a light growth of green dreams drying.


End file.
